[Propertalk] 6 Epiphany a 2017 - part 2

Thu Feb 9 16:17:47 EST 2017

Part 2
 If this is how we train ourselves to follow Jesus, or, rather, if
this is how we ask Jesus to train us and to give us compassionate
hearts, then we can learn not only how to order our own lives in the
way that Jesus seeks of us, but we can learn to minister to the world
which is filled with disruptions such as murder, family
dysfunctionality, and so on. These are always going to exist. None of
this is new to our generation. Yet each generation seems to have to
learn how to respond, how to reach out, how to seek what’s at the
heart of broken communities and societies – starting with ourselves.

	 It’s easy to make light of the plucking out of one’s own eye, or
cutting off one’s hand. What Jesus was pointing out, though, was
that in so many instances, the problem starts with us – either our
own behaviour in the first place, or our behaviour in reacting to what
is so wrong in our communities.IS it OUR eye, OUR mind, OUR heart, OUR
lips that would enflame a situation? Is it our problem that reform and
reconciliation cannot take place, or can only with great difficulty? 

	 Jesus had and continues to have the knack of not letting anyone off
the hook, yet it’s not so that He can, somehow, obtain His pound of
flesh from us. What Jesus seeks – what we’ll hear quite
prominently on Ash Wednesday in a couple of weeks – is a commitment
not to engage in practices that bring His Name and the ministry in
which we engage on His behalf, into disrepute.

	 Can you imagine Paul’s comments to the first Christians in Corinth
being said of us here? When one says, “I belong to Henry VIII, and
Richard Hooker and Samuel Seabury” and another, “I belong to John
Wesley”, and another, “I belong to John Calvin”, and another,
“I belong to Menno Simons”, and another, “I belong to Jakob
Amman” – what are we saying? One group has better prayers? One
group is better educated? One hymnbook is better than another?

	 Well, maybe we should stop right there before we get into trouble!
But you get the point. What must be at the heart of every follower and
representative of Jesus is the desire to live with care and
compassion, with love, with tenderness, with understanding, with
nonviolence in any form. What needs to be absent from all of our
hearts is the desire to put ourselves, or anyone else, before Jesus.
And if anyone tells you about what she or he knows, or writes a book
with the word “Real” in the title, referring to Jesus and/or the
church – then run from it as fast as you can.

	 NO ONE has a corner on the truth – even Jesus learned throughout
His life, no matter that He was and remains Son of God. We ALL have a
part of the truth, though, so we must find ways to bring them together
in order to see how gloriously immense is the Creation of God which is
evolving in front of us, evolving through reconciliation, evolving
through respect, evolving through courage.

	 All of the things which were going wrong in Jesus’ day developed
in the same way the things that are wrong in our day. They began with
things being allowed to slide: an angry word; a snide put-down; an
unwillingness to listen. The inequality among different people then is
just the same as it is today. The way that tempers flared into
violence then are the same as today. And most of them grew and grow
out of fear – fear that, somehow, we won’t get at least our fair
share of something, never mind more than our fair share.

	 It all begins with the small things, which can be corrected if we
have the sense and the will to do so.

	A newspaper article several days ago began, “Have you heard about
the latest outrage? Can you believe what (so-and-so) just did?” It
doesn’t matter who or what is being described here, it’s such a
common way of hearing about something. The author went on, “I’m
not actually talking about anything specific, but between the time
I’m writing this and the time you’re reading it, there will no
doubt have been plenty of examples. Your inbox and notifications are
likely full of them. Your friends are probably texting you about them.
You may well be talking about them at dinner tonight, before settling
in to watch outraged pundits rehash them. Then there’s one last
check for late-breaking outrages before a night of restless, fitful
sleep. In the morning, with a check on the accumulation of whatever
new outrages rained down overnight, the cycle starts all over
again.” 3

	From the first reading of the headline – a relatively small thing
in and of itself – to the time we put our heads down on the pillow,
all those small things have begun to weld together and to feed
disorder, discontent, disunity, dis-Christianity, if I may put it that
way.

	 What do we do with all the small things, then? Bishop Curry remarked
several times in Pittsburgh that “if it doesn’t walk and talk and
look and smell like Jesus, it’s not Christian … and if it’s
going to look like Jesus, it’s got to look like love.”

	 Our lives, our missions as friends of Jesus, involve noting,
shaping, loving, the small things, so that the whole into which they
will grow may be the place of Jesus.

	NOTES:

	[1] _“At the Edge of the Enclosure Soulwork Toward Sunday:
Self-Guided Retreat __ Epiphany 6 (Year A)”  _February 12, 2017
"COME TO TERMS" Suzanne Guthrie
http://www.edgeofenclosure.org/epiphany6a.html [1] 

2 _‘DON’T BE AFRAID TO BE PEOPLE OF LOVE,’ PRESIDING BISHOP
TELLS PITTSBURGH REVIVAL THREE-DAY EVENT KICKS OFF EPISCOPAL CHURCH
PLAN TO CLAIM NEW LIFE, CHANGE THE WORLD _BY MARY FRANCES SCHJONBERG
FEBRUARY 6, 2017

	http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.us14.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=11af1a2c9761394bbd97cdb1a&id=6f67256673&e=42c81782ef
[2]

3 _“__HOW TO GET OUT OF THE CYCLE OF OUTRAGE IN A TRUMP WORLD __IF
WE LIVE IN A PERPETUAL STATE OF OUTRAGE, TRUMP WINS.__”_  02/07/2017
BY ARIANNA HUFFINGTON 

	http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/how-to-get-out-of-the-cycle-of-outrage-in-a-trump-world_b_14635200.html
[3]

Links:
------
[1] http://www.edgeofenclosure.org/epiphany6a.html
[2]
http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.us14.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=11af1a2c9761394bbd97cdb1a&id=6f67256673&e=42c81782ef
[3]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/how-to-get-out-of-the-cycle-of-outrage-in-a-trump-world_b_14635200.html

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